Postcolonialism is concerned with the lasting impact of colonization, or simply the consequences of colonialism. Colonialism is the alteration of everything about the colonized, such as their values, standards, culture and system, in the form of the colonizers. The ideology of the “civilizing mission” and the sense of superiority that the colonizers had towards their way of life and their system was the reason for this alteration. The colonizers viewed and thought of the natives as inferior and "savages", or "niggers", and their way of life and system were devoid of any value. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay They used the power of colonial oppression and force to impose their ideals on the natives. The Invisible Man explicitly represents various aspects of colonial oppression by symbolizing racism as an obstacle to individual identity. “All my life I've been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone was trying to tell me what it was (258). This quote from the narrator of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man reveals issues of postcolonial identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural identity and issues such as double consciousness and hybridity. Throughout the story the narrator struggles to come to a sense of his own identity, but finds his efforts complicated by the fact that he is a black man living in a racist American society. Through the postcolonial lens we understand that a character's self-image is damaged and he or she is felt to be different or alien from dominant cultures. Ellison's portrayal of the narrator shows a character who struggles to accept the submissive role assigned to him by dominant society. The narrator describes a feeling of invisibility, in the sense that the world is full of blind people who cannot and will not see its true nature. When the grandfather says, "I have been a traitor since my birth, a spy in the enemy country," the narrator is haunted by his grandparents' history of slavery. (258). When he accomplishes something in the white man's society, he doesn't know how to feel. He feels like he doesn't fit in with his African American community because of the submissive role he's been assigned but, at the same time, it's clear that he's not part of mainstream society either. With this shift, Ellison shows how many African Americans felt during his time. They didn't know whether to accept the damaged self-image that was imposed on them and live a peaceful life, or fight for equality. Because of the narrator's feeling of loss, he accepts what he thinks is his best option, which is his place in the dominant culture. Throughout the story the narrator is an example of a person who is described and treated with racial discrimination and prejudice. At the beginning of the story the narrator says that he was told that he took after his grandfather; it is that similarity that brings him to a point where he can face racism, exploitation and abuse to define his individuality. When he is awarded the scholarship to a black college it is another form of the dominant group identifying and labeling him as “other” or outsider. He's basically saying that even though he should go to college, he's not good enough to go to a white college because the scholarship was for the state college for Negroes. Ironically, it is scholarship that opens the narrator's eyes to the racial injustices he has experienced. If it weren't for the scholarship, he wouldn't have understood that his grandfather was telling him that by pretending to be submissive, he would open doors that would help defeat discrimination.